Pictures from BODs Big Battle Day!

 My club organized a Big Battle Day and of course we attended. I was part of a 2x6000 points Oathmark battle but there were more lovely tables to be seen. 

Oathmark: A Review + Some suggestions for Houserules added

For years during the first decade of this century my go-to ruleset for wargaming was Warhammer Ancient Battles, basically Warhammer Fantasy Battles without the Fantasy. It was the best ruleset around in my not-at-all humble opinion in the sense that it was the best playable ruleset that I could find after reconnoitering horrors like DBM. It was however a clunky, typically 1990ies ruleset with lots of tinkered bits screwed on and a lot of frustrating stuff. I eyed the fantasy version of WAB but that already seemed terminally broken and cheesy.

When WAB went, I looked around for replacement. War & Conquest was promising and better, but still retained some of the frustrations and failed to attract opponents. Hail Caesar showed me that the Black Powder engine was fit more a lot of things, but not pre-firearms wargaming. It was bland and tasteless. Kings of War had nothing that intrigued me. So little showed up and over the years I sold most of my armies.

And then Oathmark was published. I succumbed to the hype, bought the rules, painted an army of dwarves that had been gathering dust for years, dug out some more fantasy stuff I had laying around and played some games. And was hooked. Why? Well, to be perfectly honest because it plays like Warhammer with the same joy and without the frustration.

The rule mechanics
The credit for this goes to the rules of course. Joseph McCullough, he of Frostgrave fame, used his thoughts on wargaming to write a mass fantasy battle system and in my opinion he has succeeded very well. And by doing this he crushed quite a lot of conventions that have ruled mass fantasy battle systems for years.

First, this is not an IGO-UGO system but has alternate activation. Players alternately activate units. So it doesn't have turn phases either. An activated unit has two actions and may move, move a lot, shoot or charge into contact and if it does so a bilateral combat occurs immediately. Activation rolls are no do-or-don't affairs. A failed Activation roll limits your actions, but still enables you to do things with that unit. These two things make it a dynamic game that constantly engages all players.

Second, Oathmark ditches Priestley's Law (Only D6 Games Will Sell) and uses D10s. Predictably this will give more gradual and less predictable results.

The rest of the mechanic seems relatively conventional. Units have stats like Move and Fight, need to roll a minimum value to succeed in things like Activation rolls and Hits and roll for Morale when taking casualties. There are the traditional races like Dwarves, Humans, Elves and Orcs and Goblins.

However, all rolls are achieved with a maximum of 5 dice, never more. Also, a Die roll always causes an immediate result. So no To Hit/To Wound/To Save sequences. Just a Defence minus Fight = Target Number roll and a success is a hit. No buckets of dice here.

The Army building
Army building is done brilliantly. There are two ways. First you can traditionally choose a race and take units from the list of units of that race (and some unaligned ones). Units have a point value so you can tailor battles to a specific point value to balance things. 

WARNING: building armies this way leaves the game open to all kinds of min-maxing tricks that will eventually completely derail the game balance!

Alternatively (and MUCH recommended!), you can build a Kingdom with a capital of a specific race, but additional territories that enable you to field units from different races as well! While other races' territories are slightly more expensive to "buy" into your Kingdom, you can take any. But not all. You can only take 10 territories out of 44 as your starting Kingdom and each territory gives you specific units of a specific race. For example Plains give you Human cavalry. I created the Kingdom of Dale/Erebor from The Hobbit this way.

The differences in races are notable. Elves tend to be expensive and extremely disciplined elite specialists, are very hard to break, will almost always activate but are never numerous. On the other end of the spectrum there are the goblins, brittle, undisciplined and mediocre at best but cheap enough to field them in hordes.

This means  that in order to create an army that excels in everything, you need to enlist different races. For anyone that learned Fantasy in a GW store, this is heretical! But if you were raised with Tolkien, all this should come easy to you. 😁

There are multiple troop types (although not all races have all troop types) like several infantry types (spearmen, linebreakers, militia etc), cavalry (heavy and light, horse and wolf) artillery and a list of aligned and unaligned monsters and creatures that either fight in small units or alone.

A unit is kind of standardized. Man-sized figures are deployed 5 rows wide and 1 to 4 ranks deep. A unit is never bigger than 20 figures. Bigger figures like trolls deploy in one rank of 3 or even alone, like Dragons. Ranks give you bonuses in To Hit roll, Morale checks and Shoot rolls, but make you more vulnerable for artillery. A good dilemma improves a game, I always say!

There are Characters, but they are not the one-man juggernauts from Warhammer. Instead, a General actually Commands units (he can activate more than just his own unit and boost Morale Checks) and Champions might at most give an extra Kill in combat or may challenge enemy officers or Champions. They actually feel and play like the troop type they are supposed to represent.

Spellcasters are powerful, but expensive characters. You can buy them in levels and the higher the level, the more spells and the more dice you may roll to cast them. But also much more expensive. Spells can only be cast once per Activation per Spellcaster, can make a powerful impression but so far have not been gamechangers.

Monsters can be very impressive, like the 800 point Winged Dragon which is practically a small army in itself. However, in a 3000 point average game it will eat up over a quarter of your points, so it better be a gamechanger. That amount of points will buy four (4!) full units of Goblin soldiers!

So how does it play? 
It plays fast. Units are not particularly fast, but they are maneuverable. This is because units may move or maneuver through obstacles as long as they can end their movement in formation and outside the obstacle. So you are spared the horrors of "clipping" and being unable to move because your unit was 2mm too wide. Besides, even failed Activation rolls enable one Move action. So there is always something happening. The game never drags. You never have to wait for something.

Combats are fast because both combatants roll simultaneously for their own Target Number and remove casualties and then one or both units move away from each other. Combat can be very bloody between unequal opponents and units with large losses will have trouble to make their Morale check. And when already Disordered (after one failure) a failed Morale check will send a unit packing.



As a player you are always engaged, since combat follows contact immediately, both players need to roll and after your opponents activates a unit you immediately are next. The game continues to flow until one of the armies breaks or retreats.

The rulebook
The rulebook is extremely well laid out. It is teeming with clarifying diagrams and subjects are usually explained in one or two page spreads (with accompanying tables) so you almost always find what you are looking for on one page spread. There are the main rules, advanced rules, scenarios and Kingdom and Army building chapters. There is a Campaign chapter that explains how your Kingdom may expand (or shrink!) during a campaign, which might give you access to new troop types. There are army lists for Dwarves, Humans, Elves, Goblins and Orcs as well as aligned and unaligned Monsters and other creatures.

A few rather important rules are a bit hidden away in some surprising locations in the rules, so read them really well (which is always a good thing by the way). It took me a while to spot the fact that a failed Activation roll wil raise your target number for shooting by +1 (which is mentioned in the bit about Simple Actions rather than Shooting) and I needed someone to point out to me that a so far unactivated unit that has been engaged in combat i.e. has been attacked cannot Activate anymore in that turn (which is mentioned in Activation rather than Combat).

It is a visually pleasing book too. 192 full colour pages with lots of pictures, paintings and drawings bound in hard cover.




The miniatures? 
While there is a line of Oathmark miniatures from North Star anythings goes really.

This might however be the place to say something about basing. Oathmark bases human-sized figures on 25x25mm and bigger figures on 25x50, 50x50 or 50x100. So a unit front is either 50, 125 or 150mm wide. This already tells you that front width is not extremely important, just handy.

Don't rebase your 20x20 or 25/round stuff. The important thing is to remember that a unit frontage is 5, 3 or 1 figure wide (depending  on the size of the figure). In combat the attacking officer always lines up in the middle of the frontage he is attacking with his unit. Maneuvering units may move through obstacles as long as they don't end on top of them. So the exact width of a unit is not very important. At most, a unit of 5 20mm bases wide can deploy in a 100mm corridor instead of a 125mm one. I have yet to see that happen.

So don't rebase or get hung up on base sizes. No need. 

What could be better? 
The book made it out of the printing process with some printing mistakes. The Oathmark players' Facebook page has an errata list. An official one is in the works. Nothing to get upset about.

Overall Oathmark seems to have been quite well tested. So far players have only found one Spell that seems to invite abuse (Smoke) as well as one rule (Making Room on page 34, see below for a possible solution). The rest of the game seems to work very well and as intended although those intentions are not always to anyone's taste, but well, wargamers will be wargamers.

The Conclusion
An extremely enjoyable mass fantasy wargame. It will capture my attention for quite a while to come. Extremely recommended!!!

The Sequel?
Three additional books are published at this time and reviewed here.

EDIT October 29th 2020: Dragons

The consensus seems to be emerging that Dragons are Oathmark's equivalent of the nuclear ICBM i.a.w. unbeatable by anything except another Dragon. We played one game so far with Dragons on both sides. The Dragons mainly fought each other, but when they didn't, they were indeed lethal against other units. However, although killing them with something other than another Dragon is hard, pinning them in place is relatively easy, thus neutralizing quite a large amount of points while you can defeat the rest of the enemy's army. 

EDIT March 16th 2021: Artillery

Some words about artillery. Having played a number of games I have noticed, as have others, the effectiveness of artillery. And not only catapults and such but long-range magic as well. When playing a slow moving army on an open plain (a really classic setup after all) against an Artillery- and Magic rich army your army will be severely held up and weakened along the way, only to be massacred when finally in contact. Artillery is very effective, especially in combination with artillery-enhancing or -replacing spells. 

This not a fault IMO. Rather it forces you to play accordingly and choose your tactics and battlefield better. You will need screening units and cover against long-range fire. Gaming tables will need -and feature- surprising amounts of terrain after a while. 

Playing Oathmark is in that respect actually more like late 19th century warfare than Ancient or Medieval. 

In a world of magically enhanced artillery, no general worth his salt would consider advancing slowly over an open plain. The results would be predictably disastrous. And in Oathmark, they are. So take note. This is Fantasy wargaming after all! 

EDIT July 29th 2021: Some suggestions for Houserules

After a few dozen games and a new Errata and FAQ edition I thought it time to give my views on Oathmark Houserules. Oathmark is a good ruleset, but not without problems. Fortunately the designer encourages tinkering so no problem needs to stay unsolved! 

First, the most recent FAQ at this moment is to be found here. I think this has some problems as well, to be addressed below.

Dispelling

This spell may be cast on any unit and lifts the effects of an earlier spell cast on that unit. 

Unfortunately, some Spells are not cast on units and are therefore invulnerable to any countermeasure. Some rather significant examples are Smoke and Looking Glass, which will usually bother you the entire game.  Especially Smoke invites abuse this way (for example, a unit standing right behind the Smoke can never be Charged from the front, as the attacker has no LOS through the Smoke and may not approach because the distance would be less than the minimum of 1"), so we thought this needed the following Houserule: 

All Spells can be Dispelled, unless the Spell description explicitly tells you it can't (like Mud). 

Making room for an attack

On page 34 you will find the next paragraph of text: 

In rare cases it may be necessary to move a unit that is not involved in the combat slightly to make room. In this case move the unit directly backwards until it is at least 1"away from the currently active unit. 

To be honest we never used this. But its potential for abuse and bizarre game effects is immense. 

Apart from the fact that it doesn't describe what "rare" is supposed to mean and conversely you can actually use the rule all the time, this makes it extremely hard to shield any of your units from attacks as long as the attacker has LOS to his intended target. It also makes it extremely hard to block an attack by placing your units in your opponent's way of Move or Maneuver, as long as he has LOS to his intended target.

After all, the attacker can simply oblige you to move your shielding unit backwards until it is out of the way so that he can attack the unit behind it and can now maneuver unhindered because your unit hindering him simply moves backwards. As long as your unit can move backwards, it apparently is obliged to do so. 

This completely removes any motivation to maintain battle lines (which are of course meant to prevent just such a thing) and the idea that a unit would simply move out of the way to make room for an attack on its neighbor is too weird even for fantasy. To make problems even bigger this rule made it possible to hugely abuse the flanking rule and gave cause to another weird FAQ adaptation (see below).

From the moment that I discovered this paragraph I have been completely baffled by its possible purpose so I contacted the author for clarification. As it turns out the rule was meant for the situation that: 

a) the attacker moves to charge and makes contact with its intended target

b) the attacker's unit must now be placed flush against the target unit

c) but can't since another enemy unit blocks this. 

d) so this enemy unit is moved backwards etc.  

To be honest, knowing this, I still think the rule is unnecessary. When an attacker does not fit against the target unit I'd say that the charge should be considered blocked.  The target unit is then simply too well shielded. 

So my suggestion would be to completely disregard the paragraph on Making Room on page 34.

If you do insist on using this rule, I think it should actually have been written down like this: 

In case an attacking unit has already made contact with its target but cannot be placed flush against the target due to another enemy unit not involved in the combat it may be necessary to move that last unit slightly to make room. In this case move the unit directly backwards until it is at least 1"away from the currently active unit. 

It still leaves to be desired though. What if the unit that makes room bumps into an obstacle or another friendly unit? Does this make the charge impossible or is this a pushback? It just causes more questions. Better to disregard it completely. 

Flanking and rear attacks

The rulebook on pages 34 and 35 gives pretty clear rules on when a unit attacks a flank or a rear. The front, flank and rear quadrants are found by drawing diagonals through the unit's "footprint". When you attack a unit, which must always be done by a Move straight forward, the moment of contact and the location of your unit's officer determine in which quadrant you attack. 

Unfortunately, the "making room" rule opened this up to immense abuse. Imagine your unit is facing an enemy unit A right in front of it at a few inches distance. To your right front is another enemy unit B. Now you announce that you want to wheel to the right and attack unit B. This is impossible, since the unit A in front of you is in the way, so you move that backwards until completely out of the way with the help of the Make Room Rule. You are now positioned in the flank of unit B and proceed to flank attack that unit. 

To solve this, the designer did not simply trash the Make Room Rule (like he should have done IMO). 

Instead he completely rewrote the rules for Flanking and Rear attacks. Now the start of the Charge (whatever that may mean) and the location of the officer determine the quadrant in which the attack takes place. Firstly, this makes it necessary to painstakingly measure in which quadrant the charge starts. 

Also you can now have a unit with a narrow front starting its charge inside the flank quadrant of the target unit and, due to its movement direction at the start of the charge, ending up entirely in the front quadrant at the moment of contact, only to be then dragged around the target unit until ending up on the flank. 

Finally, the attacker from the example above can still force unit A backwards, wheel to the right and attack unit B. Only now the attacker is making a "frontal" attack, as this is where his officer usually starts (I think, since it is unclear whether the Charge "starts" with the Wheel or with the Move Forward) and is dragged to the front of unit B. Thus having essentially now made a charge by moving more than a full move to the right, which is normally not allowed. It boggles the mind.... 

Suffice to say that in my not at all humble opinion this creates even more complications, unclarities and weird situations. So ironically my suggested Houserule is to play the Flanking and Rear attack rules simply from the book and: 

To completely disregard the first two Q&A's from the "Other" paragraph from the FAQ as well as disregard the paragraph on Making Room on page 34 of the rulebook. 

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age

Joseph McCullough

hardcover

Osprey Publishing

Oathmark Expansions Review

Some time ago I reviewed Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age in very enthusiastic terms and I must say; this enthusiasm hasn't lessened at all by playing it a number of times. In the meantime three expansion books have been published so it was about time that I took a look at those. 

Format

All three books have been published by Osprey Publishing as full colour 80-page softcovers in the familiar Osprey squarish size. They share the pleasant layout of the rulebook. 

All three books are more-or-less built up around a central theme and offer some extras on the side. One should not mistake them for equivalents of the classic "army books" as only Oathbreakers can be viewed as such really. Their contribution to the game is mostly collateral and has more to do with new units,  mini-campaigns, terrain and RPG-esque additions. 

Battlesworn was the first expansion to be published and anticipation was high on my account. I expected an army book on one of the missing races, like Undead, but instead got something else entirely. 

Battlesworn, as the title suggests, has elite units as its central theme. The book offers rules to enhance units that perform exceptionally well in battle with Battle Honours. While giving an RPG-like taste  by individualizing units like this, Battle Honours can actually be used (sparsely) on the battlefield itself by re-rolling dice. The book offers rule suggestions for gaining Battle Honours which can also be lost and regained. These elite units are tough and might even overcome destruction or Breaking. 

When you think this takes up the best part of the book you are wrong. That role is actually taken by water: as a terrain type to be sailed or crossed, as a reason to introduce the Engineer Unit (who can bridge water but also builds fortifications), Boats, water-related Spells and three water-dwelling monsters.

The book also contains three Military Expeditions. These are actually ready-to-play mini-campaigns of up to 4 scenarios that come with a few unique territories to be won. 

So if you want to dabble in fortifications and amphibious landings and have plans for a Lake Battle, this is a book for you.

So instead of an army list this book offers bits and pieces to enrich your games, play on a different (wetter!) kind of table for a change and play campaigns. 

Conclusion

Do you need this to enjoy Oathmark? Well, no. It expands on the gaming possibilities by adding water as terrain and lets you individualize units. But of course if you don't care to build boats or name units you can certainly do without. The Engineer unit might even be the most generally applicable contents of this book. Nevertheless, it's a fun and well-made addition to the game. 

Oathbreakers' central theme are the Undead. The book offers rules, territories, Special Abilities, Spells and unit lists to found an Undead kingdom and play Undead armies. In that respect it is the only Army list book of the three. 

All the classic Undead types are represented and then some except, oddly enough, the Zombie. Undead rank and file is made up of Skeletons (the grunts that provide soldiers, spearmen and archers) and Revenants (the elite types that provide the linebreakers, warriors and cavalry). There is of course Skeletal artilley as well and the whole reeking bunch is augmented by Revenant Champions and Necromantic Spellcasters. 

Skeletons are brittle in combat but quite resilient against arrows and of course necromancers can replete losses during the battle by reviving new Undead. Most Undead are unfased by Morale checks, but do suffer more losses due to their lack of self-preservation. All in all an interesting new army. 

The Undead can be played as a stand alone army or -like the other races in Oathmark- in combination with other races. There will be some limitations regarding Command as the living do not get full benefit from Undead commanders. 

The Undead kingdom provides characteristic territories (yes, there are tombs) as well as Chariots!!!! The Undead, being of course a bit outdated as they are, well, dead, still use chariots and up until this book came out, they were the only army to do so. 

Besides the Undead the book offers some more RPG-like material for creating Legendary Heroes; exceptional and rare (only 1 per army in principle) characters with a few Heroic Traits, which are also introduced in this book. 

Finally there are three new Military Expeditions; three mini campaigns that also offer new unique territories. 

Conclusion

As the Undead were sorely missed in the range of armies for Oathmark this book was perhaps the most eagerly awaited expansion. At least by me! For me, this book really was a must. 

Time is the Bane of Kings and this supplement mainly addresses Kingdoms. As Oathmark players will know your Kingdom is the source and base for your army and the makeup of your territories determines which races and units your army may field. So it is only logical that Events that have impact on your Kingdom will impact your games as well. 

In that respect the book provides a wide range of Kingdom Events to be rolled for after each battle. Be they harmful or beneficial, these Events influence your kingdom and the armies and abilities with which you can fight your next battle. Think failed coups, horse shortages and plagues. Rolling for these events may sound a bit clinical but they actually offer great opportunities for an ongoing narrative. 

Besides the Kingdom Events the book offers new Formations and Units. 

First, all races get to field chariots! As long as you have the right territory, that is. So chariot lovers that dislike playing undead will be happy with this book for this reason alone. 

Second, when choosing the right territory, this may function as a training ground to teach your units new formations. Phalanxes, Shieldwalls and Javelin storms will now be available on the battlefield to surprise and terrify your opponent! 

Last, the book offers a few new units: living statues, animated idols and Collossi! 

This book as well has a few mini campaigns, new Spells and Special Abilities. 

Conclusion

Like Battlesworn this book is a nice and well-made addition to the game. When you view your Kingdom as an Army generator and don't care for chariots you could certainly skip this one and still have fun playing Oathmark for the foreseeable future. 

For the tabletop wargamer the formations are probably the most interesting feature. These seem, like most additions to Oathmark, interesting but subtle enough to not be game-changers. However, phalanxes and skirmish formations could become really influential. I would not go without this book for that reason alone, and the fleshing out of your Kingdom is a big bonus for me. 

Do you wanna live forever? Or at all? Undead for Oathmark coming to the table.

 I finished my Undead for Oathmark. I think I am done painting Fantasy for quite a while now.

Also, I might have overshot my mark. They're 6.500 points worth of Undead.....

The figures come from a wide range of leftovers: Zvezda Cursed Legion, Reaper Bones Wraiths, GW Ghosts, Mantic Ghouls and Revenants, Zombicide Archers, North Star Frostgrave stuff and some undead that are so old I have no idea who made them. 

EPIC OATHMARK BATTLE REPORT!!!!!

Last Saturday my buddy and me kicked off my Christmas holidays with a massive 5.500-points-per-side Oathmark Battle. Dark Elves with human slaves fought an Undead army with human... well, apprentices I suppose?

By mutual agreement we also both brought a Dragon. We also Houseruled that location-bound Spells like Smoke and Looking Glass would be Dispellable (which in the rules they are not, for some strange reason).

The pictures below show the table. There was quite a lot of terrain as the armies fought in the little hamlet of Nicolaasburg on Patricks lovely table.

Note that even with this amount of terrain we were still able to play a quite dynamic battle, due to the maneuverability of the units. No Warhammer army would ever have been able to maneuver on a table like this, but Oathmark armies can!

The battle ran about as follows:

With clear chokepoints on my left, center and right wing I decided to stop the center gap with Smoke, the left with my heavy cavalry supported by a Vampire and try a breakthrough with my humans on the right.

My artillery would use Indirect fire (by means of Looking Glass as planned, but actually the Dragon, being Enormous, could simply look over the Smoke) firing over the Smoke to whittle down Patricks Elves.

The Elves advanced cautiously over the entire front, parts 1 and 2 of my plan ran smoothly, although my Vampire took a beating from Patrick's Trolls, but the humans in front of my right wing proved tenacious and were only slowly being driven back, refusing to break (because we used the rallying rules wrongly, btw).

My Dragon managed to cause quite a lot of damage to the Elves. There was this very satisfying moment when my Dragon, walking partly through the Smoke Spell, Firebreathed Patrick's Linebreakers.

But eventually Patricks Dragon attacked him and pinned him in a deadlock in the center, the rest of the battle raging around the two fighting monsters.

To speed things up a bit I Dispelled my own Smoke and charged the battered remains of the Elves in the center with my Skeletons. The left wing blockade worked fine and the Elves in the center were practically annihilated. However, my Skellies suffered terrible losses from the Elven Archers (because I forgot that Skellies only suffer half damage from bows) and Patricks humans on my right still refused to either die or Break, being slowly pushed back however.

Eventually we decided to play out the Dragon fight, as the remaining player with a Dragon would still have quite good cards on the table. After the dust settled, my Dragon lay dead and Patricks Dragon stood reeling with just 1 Hitpoint left.

As large parts of my army were still very functional but Patricks Elves were practically destroyed and his Humans decimated (and I had to be home in time for diner) we called it a win for the Undead.

Lessons learned:

Dragons are way to powerful to use in a game and have fun. Don't.

Morale deterioration seemed very slow. Even units of humans reduced to 25% still kept making their Morale checks and the fact that you are not allowed to push them off the table meant they would simply stand their ground to the last man instead of being routed.

Some house rule seemed in order but as it turned out we made mistakes with rallying Disordered troops (that actually cannot just shake off Disordered and Activate, but are limited to a Simple Action in that turn).

A spectacular and great game that took us from mid morning to the end of the afternoon to finish. 5.500 points is quite a bit... Many thanks to Patrick for his great table and even greater hospitality!